Cold
by IrishLeFay
Summary: Dee's plane goes down in the Canadian wilderness in the middle of winter. Our boy in blue is no outdoorsman, but will his cunning and faith be enough to get him through?


Disclaimer: Dee Laytner, Ryo MacLean, and Bikky Goldman do not belong to me, if they did I wouldn't be poor.

Cold

By: Irish

Dee was the epitome of a city boy. He had left the City of New York on only rare occasion. His idea of a vacation was spending the weekend in a different burro. He was starting to regret now that he had never taken any time to learn about the great outdoors, because it had left him rather disinclined to his current predicament. He was lucky he wasn't dead, or so he thought at first. He wasn't so sure now.

He had been flying back from Ontario Canada, after escorting a suspect captured in New York City, to the jurisdiction of the Canadian Mounted Police. A simple type assignment. He was on a plane a few hours with a shackled suspect, got off the plane, handed him over, had a lay over long enough to grab some dinner, then fly home. It was the flying home part that hadn't gone so well. They had taken off no problem, but hit an unexpected ice storm about an hour out of the airport. Dee had no idea what had happened exactly, he didn't know jack about planes, and didn't want to. He didn't want to think about the accident of physics that allowed a few hundred people, and all their luggage, to fly thousands of miles an hour in a big metal bird. Regardless of his knowledge, the law of averages, and far more in line with physics then flying had been, the plane had gone down. It had been surreal for Dee, Beyond surreal even.

It had been quiet. In movies, people screamed, and prayed, and in general were a little hysterical. The pilot had simple come over the loudspeakers and told them that something was wrong (the pilot had said what, but Dee no longer recalled) and that they were going to attempt an emergency landing. With out landing gear, rutters, or engines. The air masks had popped out of the ceiling as everything took a sharp turn downward; people had calmly put them on. And then there was silence, save for the roar of the wind past the plane windows, until they hit the trees. Then there had been a terrible scraping squealing sound. Then people had started to scream, as the plane was hurtled through the trees, sheering off the wings of the plane, and the trunks of the trees as it went. It went on like that, nose pointed to the ground. They were lucky that it had landed in the lake, not on the land. Dee supposed it would have exploded if it had hit solid ground. But it hit the lake, breaking through at least a foot of ice, and immediately started sinking.

Dee had gotten out. He didn't even remember how. He had been sitting next to the escape hatch, a sheer roll of the dice kind of luck, and when he unbuckled his seatbelt, he was already holding onto the door frame with his other hand, so instead of being swept back by the water, he stayed right there, clinging to the door. He was pretty sure his whole body had stopped when the water hit it. His breath froze in his lungs; his heart stopped, hell, his brain stopped. The frigidness of it clenched his muscles, and his fingers actually gripped tighter at the doorframe as tons of water rushed in on him. He was breathing water, he couldn't help it, because the cold had forced all the air from his lungs, not inhaling wasn't an option. But he was still conscious.

His luck held further, the plane didn't turn over on its side, which would have left him in the same tomb as all the others. Instead, his side of the plane ended facing upwards, and when he was finally able to force himself through the door out into the lake, all he had to do was float up. It was all he could manage to do anyway, really, though he had flailed frantically trying to get there faster. But he couldn't swim at all in the first place, and his entire body had cramped up, he swore he could feel the ice crystals forming in his muscles. But he did get to the top.

When his head broke the surface of the water, his hair almost immediately froze to his scalp, water forming beads of ice in his eyebrows and lashes. He kicked and flailed his arms, choking as he bobbed in the water. It wasn't until then, as he fought against his body weight, that he realized that just because he was out of the plane didn't mean he was going to make it. Where were the fucking gnomes and friendly otters when you needed them?

He must not have been too far from shore… or the waves from the plane crash must having been going that direction or something, because he made it to a place where he could touch. Walking through the water head been like trying to move lead. His legs were completely numb, all of him was. It had taken a force of will Dee didn't know he possessed to not just collapse at the edge of the water. If he did, he knew he would die. He was barely able to think.

And now, now he was stumbling through the foot and a half of snow, back along the short trail of wreckage, his movements even further hampered by his clothes, as they froze stiff. He was starting to feel hot, not just warm, hot. How could he be hot? It was so cold his clothes were frozen… He needed to find shelter… something…

He knew not to go too far from the downed plane, if they were going to find him, he had to be somewhere findable, but his logic and ability to think clearly were failing. He managed to turn himself around, making a big arc, unable to just turn around, heading back for the lake. He had to get warm… he was warm, he felt like he should be pouring sweat… man, if he took his shirt off… He went to do so, actually having to stare at his hands to get them to move. They were blue. And red? He looked closer. Bleeding, something was bleeding, something above his right hand, which is why there was blood on his right hand. He knew he was thinking painfully slow, even for him.

"Hypothermia." His voice was like a creaky hinge. The word rattled in Dee's brain like a marble in an empty can. He knew that was what was wrong, knew that that was why he felt hot, when he was all but frozen as he stood. But it was so hard to remember that. Now, about the blood… He made his eyes slowly work their way up his arm, to find the source. There was a lot of blood. It had completely slicked his right hand. When he saw what the problem was a low moan escaped his lips. He could see bone, through his shirt. Dee stopped looking at it almost immediately, or as immediately as his dying nervous system could process. He looked back along his trail, easily visible by the pink that ran along it. He was fucked. Fucked or not, he wasn't letting himself quit. No fucking way. If he died, he was going to die knowing he had done all he could to get back to his family, not in a pine box.

He started to shuffle through the snow again, fixing his eyes on the burning tail of the plane that stuck out of the lake. Just something to focus on. When he got closer he saw that some of the luggage had been torn out of the plane, and a dozen or so suitcases had hit the ground like impotent bombs, exploding their generally soft cargo out into the snow. Dee stopped again next to one of these, staring down at it dumbly. He heard very loudly, even over the wind and crackle of flaming wreckage, the pattering of his blood on the hard, open lid of the suitcase. With comical slowness his face twisted into a grimace and he took one step to the right, almost falling in the process, but now his blood once again fell silent into the snow.

That accomplished he turned his attention to the suitcase. It was upright, some of the clothes were scattered about it. Okay, he could work with that. He tried to grab the strap of the damn thing about three times before he realized his hands were not going to grip it. He tried to reach out with his right hand to help things along, but the arm was no longer quite where it should be. Unsteady already, the unexpected distribution of the weight of his arm toppled him, and he fell face first into the snow.

"Not good… not good…." The only reason he knew he was actually speaking out loud was the way the snow puffed away from his mouth. He rolled to his side, trying to get his knees under him, his hands… but he couldn't push with his right hand… but he could never remember that long enough to not try it after he fell to the ground again. He wasn't getting up.

Dee's eyes drifted closed, he could never remember wanting to sleep so badly… if he rested just a moment… No! He forced his eyes open again. If he rested just a moment he would be resting for eternity. He forced himself to his hands and knees, this time, catching himself when his right arm buckled. He didn't feel any pain. Slowly he sat back on his knees, freeing his left hand. If he was going to get anywhere, he needed to stop trying to use this fucking useless limb. He needed to keep it out of the way… Dee reached over, taking his right hand in his left and pulled it across his body, wedging it through his belt near his left hip. He felt something give in his arm, but didn't care. It didn't hurt, and right now, not having the dead weight would make things easier… then again, it would be one more thing to try and carry. He was completely unaware of how grisly the thought was. Right now, survival was all that mattered.

From his knees, he looked around the unnatural clearing made by the crash. __

_ 'God, come on… give me a hand here…'_ He tittered unnaturally at the thought, looking at the arm that didn't seem to be attached to his shoulder by much. _'Seriously though… Come on Big Guy, I really, really don't want to be seeing you any time soon.'_ He kept looking… there. He found it. His salvation. It was a suitcase, one of the big hard sided kinds. One of the big hard-sided kinds you could fit a body in. He didn't even try to get to his feet this time; instead he leaned forward onto his left hand, and started to crawl. It went better with out his unhinged right arm to hamper him. It was still attached, and still stuck in his belt. Good. At least something was going right. By the time he reached the suitcase he could see that his fingers were going from blue to black. It made him think of those 'what do you call a guy with no arms and no legs…' jokes.

The coffin sized suitcase was open, and Dee scooped out some of the clothes with his left hand, leaving some in there to lay on. He found a stuffed bear that must have been meant as a gift; it still had the price tag on in. He left that in there as he crawled inside with slow painstaking effort. He lay down on his right side, having to curl up in a pretty tight fetal position to fit. But he did fit. He wedged the bear under the break in his right arm, it wasn't a bandage, but it was better then nothing. He let out a shaky laughing sob as he reached up to pull down the lid of the suitcase. He was closing the lid of his own coffin, and he knew it. He wanted to tell Ryo and Bikky… His cell phone. He pulled it out of his pocket and stared at it blankly. He knew there was no way he would get service out here, and there was no way in hell the damn thing would work after the dunking it had taken, but he also knew that if you scratched the face plates of the damn things, it didn't go away, like writing in snow would. He reached into his pocket one more time before he closed the lid, pulling out his rosary, and then dropping the lid shut on himself. It didn't close all the way, his shoulders just a little too wide, but it stayed open only a fraction on an inch, it should be enough. He put the crucifix between his teeth, and bent it until it snapped in half, cutting his lip. He didn't feel it though. Spitting out what remained of the cross, he wrapped the beads around his left hand and wedged the cell phone between his knee and the side of the suitcase. It wasn't long after that that he closed his eyes.

The first Canadian medics on the scene looked over the wreckage with stones in their guts. How many dead? Every soul aboard probably. The two or three green horns were off puking in the underbrush.

"'Eh Reg, is that a blood trail?" the medic who spoke pointed with a gloved finger to the rather wide pink trail that went in a more or less straight line to the edge of the trees, a little past, then made a wide loop and headed back towards where they stood.

"Jesus wept… I think it is." Reg replied, a certain amount of awe in his voice, and hope. No one got into the EMT business to zip body bags. They had dedicated their lives to save others, and nothing was worse then something like this… where there was no help to be given, other then filling out toe tags. But a trail of blood meant someone had survived the crash, and maybe, just maybe, they would actually be able to work.

Reg's eyes swept the track, now seeing the trampled snow that went with it. There was a large patch of blood near an open suitcase. The paramedic tromped over to it, then followed it on. It was pretty obvious whoever had started off walking, was now crawling, but where the hell… The blood stopped in front of a huge suitcase, the hard-sided kind.

"You think he's in there?" James whispered, his own heart thumping wildly… that was a lot of blood to have lost. There was nothing worse when you could tell the person had fought tooth and nail to stay alive… but had died anyway. Those were the ones that haunted James.

"Well…" Reg had stripped off his winter gloves and pulled on a pair of vinyl ones, before he lifted the lid of the suitcase.

Their hearts both sunk when they saw what was inside, the man was pale and blue and looked about frozen stiff… he had to be dead, he looked dead. But dead or not, there was procedure to follow. James had pulled on his own pair of vinyl gloves and reached in, feeling the guy's neck for a pulse as he leaned in to listen for breath, expecting none. When he felt a puff of air against his cheek, he almost leapt to his feet in startlement.

"I think he is alive."

The two paramedics shouted for a stretcher, lifting the stiff man out of the suitcase carefully, wrapping thermal blankets over his unmoving frame. He was alive. Reg and James loaded him into the chopper that was there, just in case, and immediately started to work on him. They weren't going to lose him. It wasn't until Dee arrived in the ER that the cell phone clutched in his hand was noticed, a nurse having to practically pry it out of his literally frozen fingers. She didn't discarded it with the rest of his things, she tucked it away in the bag with the poor officer's badge and police issued weapon, both still on him.

Ryo was numb as he made the hours long flight into Canada. Critical Condition. Plane crash. Reattach. Critical condition… the words chased around his head. It had been hard to decide whether he should bring Bikky with, or leave him home. If Dee died… if Dee died Bikky would never forgive him for not giving him the chance to see him one last time. And so the boy was sitting next to him on the airplane, not playing video games or listening to his Walkman… just staring and biting his nails. Ryo could empathize. He was numb getting off the plane, numb riding to the hospital, chauffeured by a Canadian Mounty. Numb as he listened to the doctor telling him what the diagnoses was. They had successful reattached his right arm…sever compound fracture…full recovery… at that Ryo backtracked.

"Pardon?"

"I said that right now, it looks like he should make a full recovery. He may yet lose a few toes or fingers, but I can't express to you how much of a miracle it is that he is here at all. We've upgraded his condition to serious."

Ryo sighed deeply. Dee would live. He wrapped an arm around Bikky as they walked down the hall to the room Dee had been assigned.

"Excuse me…"

Ryo turned around, a bit surprised anyone had spoken, it was so quiet. A very petite Asian woman in a nurse's uniform stood nearby, looking a little nervous.

"Excuse me, are you Detective Laytners's family?"

"Yes…" Ryo wasn't sure if he was about to be asked to prove that fact… he doubted it, the nurse didn't have that mean look about her, but it was such an odd question.

"I think this was meant for you." She held something out, and Ryo took it hesitantly his brow furrowing. It was Dee's cell phone… but what… He turned it over. Carved into the faceplate was the letter D, a heart, then RM, BG. Ryo felt a lump like a fist in his throat. Dee hadn't expected to make it. Dee had left this so they would know…

"Thank you." He whispered, slipping it in his pocket.

Ryo sat beside Dee, rubbing his left shoulder, his hand was bandaged in an attempt to save his fingers, his arm had about four needles in it… so Ryo caressed his shoulder. Bikky was asleep, curled up on a chair, his head on Ryo's lap. But Ryo couldn't sleep… D heart RM BG… God… How close had it been? He was gazing at Dee's face, had been for the last hour, just watching him. So when his eyes flickered open, Ryo saw almost instantly. He lifted Bikky's head off his lap, laying it down on the chair, moving to stand over Dee, stroking his face.

"Lover? You with me?" Ryo whispered, not even noticing the tears that fell from his eyes onto Dee's cheeks. Dee nodded faintly, his own eyes searching Ryo's face.

"Thank God…"Ryo dropped his forehead to rest against Dee's, feeling Dee's dark lashes flutter against his cheeks as he blinked. Ryo composed himself after a moment and looked down at Dee again, giving him a feeble smile. "How are you feeling?"

Dee managed a faint smile of his own, alive enough have a sense of humor, he whispered "Cold."

Authors Note: This was written in response to a fic challenge on a fan fiction group to write a short fic (500-1000 words) using the word cold. I way over shot the word requirement, but thought it turned out as a good one-shot. I thought I would share.


End file.
